Review-Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC: Cooler, Faster and (maybe) Better than Reference

It wasn’t too long ago when the GeForce 8800 GT stole our attention with its remarkable price-performance ratio. Based on the venerable G92 chip that remained in NVIDIA’s lineups for a couple of years afterwards, this particular graphics card series came with an affordable price tag while offering a level of performance close to that of the flagship GeForces at the time (the 8800 GTX/ Ultra). In fact, the card was so good, it can still be used to play today’s games under reasonable detail settings and resolution. According to NVIDIA’s terms, the GeForce 8800 GT was positioned in the “Sweet Spot” of the mainstream segment.

Several years later, NVIDIA released another mainstream-class GPU that seems to be following the recipe that led to 8800 GT’s success, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti. NVIDIA’s add-in-board partners responded immediately by releasing new products based on that new GPU, including Galaxy who sent a non-reference GTX 560 Ti card to our lab this time. Since a standard GTX 560 Ti is already appealing in its own rights, a custom version of it is, of course, even more interesting. The specification table below can show you the differences between GTX 560 Ti and other GeForce GTX 5xx series GPUs from NVIDIA.

Specification

	NVIDIA GTX 580	NVIDIA GTX 570	NVIDIA GTX 560 Ti	Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC
Streaming Multiprocessors	16	15	8	8
Stream Processors (CUDA Cores)	512	480	384	384
Texture Units	64	60	64	64
ROP Units	48	40	32	32
Graphics Clock	772 MHz	732 MHz	822 MHz	835 MHz
Shader Clock	1544 MHz	1464 MHz	1644 MHz	1670 MHz
Memory Clock (effective)	4008 MHz	3800 MHz	4008 MHz	4000 MHz
Memory Size	1536 MB	1280 MB	1024 MB	1024 MB
Memory Type	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5	GDDR5
Memory Interface	384-bit	320-bit	256-bit	256-bit
Codename	GF110	GF110	GF114	GF114
Fabrication Process	40 nm	40 nm	40 nm	40 nm
Transistor Count	3 Billion	3 Billion	1.95 Billion	1.95 Billion
Die Size	520 mm²	520 mm²	–	–
Power Connectors	8-pin + 6-pin	2x 6-pin	2x 6-pin	2x 6-pin
Min Recommended Power Supply	600 Watt	550 Watts	500 Watts	500 Watts
Thermal Design Power (TDP)	244 Watts	219 Watts	170 Watts	170 Watts
GPU Thermal Threshold	97 °C	97 °C	100 °C	100 °C
DirectX Version	11	11	11	11
Bus Support	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16	PCIe 2.0 x16

The Galaxy GTX 560 Ti GC comes factory overclocked, which means that the GPU operates at a higher frequency compared to standard GTX 560 cards. Its “GC” suffix stands for “Galaxy Clocked”, a term that is apparently used by the manufacturer to give special designation to its pre-overclocked products like this one right here. Too bad there is only a marginal increase in its frequency. The core clock is only bumped up a bit by 13 MHz, resulting in an operating frequency of 835 MHz. We also found out that the memory is running at a lower speed, albeit only by a negligible 8 MHz slower than reference specs.

The good news is, Galaxy uses a non-reference PCB design and a custom HSF that make the card, at the very least, looks cool on the outside. Its blue PCB has a different components layout compared to standard cards. The Galaxy’s Twinblade HSF on this product is equipped with 3 heatpipes and two, 90 mm fans. At first glance, this HSF seems promising, so, in addition to our standard benchmark runs, we also put its overclocking ability to the test. But before moving on to the results, let us first see the photos of Galaxy GeForce GTX 560 Ti GC!

Sales Package and Contents

With its blue-black color theme and nice overall design, the box looks cool and sophisticated. The most interesting part of this packaging, however, is the backside where you can read the “8 reasons to buy this graphics card” promotional lines written in the Indonesian language. At least that would make the marketing terms more understandable for the locals.

One of the highlighted features is the non-reference, Twinblade HSF and the factory overclocking.

We found a very complete accessories package inside the box. Galaxy even supplies a mini-HDMI cable, a nice inclusion indeed.